Hoops And Dreams

To The Arapaho Of The Wind River Reservation, Basketball Is Not Just A Game, It`s A Key To Their Ethnic Pride--and Survival

January 14, 1990|By Ted Delaney.

In the late 1950s Wyoming scholastic sports consisted of two classes, A and B, of which St. Stephen`s was in the latter. In the 1958-59 season, as St. Stephen`s kept winning, the St. Stephen`s gym was becoming a symbol of Arapaho pride. The wins got easier, the margins of victory more unbalanced. In the howling cold nights of Wyoming winter, the unpaved roads leading from the reservation to the St. Stephen`s gym filled with cars and with riders on horses. By that February, the Eagles of St. Stephen`s were about to go to Laramie for the state championship playoffs.

Although it was a predominantly Arapaho team, several white players, the Catholic boys from Riverton, had been instrumental that year in the team`s success. But Zummach recalls that the Indian players had seemed troubled as the playoffs were about to start.

``I told them that in life they had to learn to compete with whites, and also to work with whites to achieve their goals,`` Zummach says. ``I told them that if all our players, white or Indian, did well, it would be a greater victory for all of them. . . .``

It would be. A white St. Stephen`s player, Mickey Gamble, says now that

``when we went on the court, we were Indians, and proud of it.``

The state championship game was played at the University of Wyoming Fieldhouse. Through the earlier rounds, St. Stephen`s had become a crowd favorite. The opponent in the state finals was University Prep of Laramie, a school of middle-class whites, including many children of University of Wyoming professors. The game was broadcast on radio across Wyoming. The St. Stephen`s guards were Carlos Harris and Mike Harris; the radio announcer pointed out they were not brothers, saying: ``One`s Indian, and the other`s American.``

That night of the finals, the 10,000-seat arena was full. Only about 400 Arapaho had been able to make their way from the reservation, ``but 90 percent of the people were behind us,`` Strannigan says.

The coach of University Prep was Dr. Lloyd McCollough, now retired in Laramie. He recalls that ``even though we were the hometown team, when we came on the floor, the crowd was totally against us. That hurt our players.

``I surmise that for some of the fans, it was partly a guilt complex about how the white man had exploited the Indian in the past. But that night, with that backing, St. Stephen`s almost appeared invincible to our boys.``

And at the end, when St. Stephen`s had won by six, the loss ``was a shock,`` says Rodney Martin, then Prep`s star. ``This St. Stephen`s team just seemed to come out of nowhere.``

The next year things only got better for St. Stephen`s. Again, the Eagles defeated Prep for the state championship. And that year the St. Stephen`s team did not lose a game. They played teams from larger school and teams from out of state, beating all comers.

The dynasty was short-lived. In that 1960-61 season, the team won its 48th straight game, a Wyoming record for any sport. But after a loss to Prep in the state final, Strannigan resigned and moved on to coach at Riverton High, a public school that provided him better opportunities than a struggling mission school.

Although St. Stephen`s continued to finish near the top in Wyoming basketball over the next few years, the Jesuits had begun to doubt the effectiveness of the high school. Those great teams had built a work ethic and taste of success, but it didn`t seem to translate to anything beyond basketball. In letters to superiors in Rome, the priests questioned whether the demanding college-prep curriculum suited young Arapaho students not interested in leaving the reservation for further studies. Rome concurred. In 1966, the school graduated its last class.

By the mid-1970s, plans began again for a new high school. A federal program aimed at Indian education effected the opening of the government-supported, tribal-run Wyoming Indian High, with an enrollment of about 150 students. In the fall of 1982, an Arapaho named Al Redman was made basketball coach. A new program began in earnest.

Redman`s first seasons mirrored the quick success of Strannigan`s. After a good season in 1982-83, Redman`s Indian High Chiefs went on to win back-to- back state championships in Class 2A, the third of Wyoming`s four scholastic divisions. By the end of the 1984-85 season, the Chiefs had won 44 straight games. Going into the summer break of 1985, the fans of the reservation looked forward to the beginning of the 1985-86 season with great excitement: With five wins, the Chiefs would break the record of 48 that St. Stephen`s had set 26 years before. In a short time, however, the Arapaho people`s excitement would turn to grief.

The suicides began in the late summer of 1985. The first was in August. But suicide is not a stranger on the reservation; the family mourned and quietly buried their young man.

That week, however, there was a second suicide, then a third. By week`s end, four young men had killed themselves.